


Normal is a Story Told by Someone Else

by mystivy



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-30
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 21:12:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystivy/pseuds/mystivy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rafa stands still, and Roger suddenly knows how it is to feel out of place, disjointed and improbable. This is not his Rafa standing before him. This is a man he knows so profoundly, so completely that it is as if he is his other self; and yet here he stands, implacable and calm as the eye of a storm, unreachable. “I shouldn’t have come,” says Roger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Normal is a Story Told by Someone Else

Roger has been on the tour long enough to know how it feels to lose. For a long time, he didn’t have to remember too much, but ever since the year of mono, he has learned to live with it. Pack up with Mirka and the girls, leave the tournament, leave the city, and play another day. It’s never the end. Not even a loss in the Wimbledon quarter finals is the end. He even tells the press room that he might stay, though he hadn’t even considered it before he says it.

“Do you really want to stay a few days?” asks Mirka, back in the house, her hands on her hips as she looks around at the mess of toys in the living room. The girls are finally asleep, though through the monitor they are still using they can hear the restless noises of late teething.

“Yeah, maybe.” says Roger. “I mean, Anna has just flown in from New York. We should at least have dinner with her, since she only got to see me play this once. She was probably expecting to be here until Sunday.”

Mirka looks over at him from the doorway. “Are you sure?” she asks.

Roger is opening a bottle of wine. The spotlights over the island in the kitchen make the glasses gleam, and the wine glugs satisfyingly, a deep velvet red. He brings Mirka a glass. “Yeah,” he says. “Anyway, the girls hate to fly when they’re teething. They should be okay in a few more days.”

Mirka takes her glass and gives him a warm look. “If you think so,” she says. “You usually like to leave.”

“I know,” he replies. “But it doesn’t matter. We can stay a few days. If you don’t mind, I mean.”

“I don’t mind,” says Mirka. “You know I love London.” She kisses him on the cheek and takes his hand. “Come on then,” she says, and leads him over to the couch. “Let’s just watch TV or something.”

“Something normal,” says Roger, with a small grin.

“Yeah,” she says, reaching for the remote.

When she turns on the TV, it’s on the BBC, and they’re showing Wimbledon coverage. “Leave it,” says Roger, before she has time to flick around. It’s a recap of Rafa’s match. They watch silently for a few minutes, Roger’s arm wrapped around Mirka, as Rafa blisters his way through the match with Mardy Fish.

“He’s in good form,” says Mirka, after the first two sets.

“He loses this next one,” says Roger.

And then they show the clip, the changeover when Rafa sees on the screen in the corner of the court that Roger has lost. Unthinkingly, Roger sits forward, his arm sliding out from behind Mirka. Rafa looks up so quickly, and then they cut away, so Roger can’t see his face until Rafa has once more schooled his expression, returning to his usual determined focus. “Why did they cut away?” he asks, before he can stop himself.

Mirka pats her hand on his thigh. “They were just showing the results,” she says, though he can hear in her voice that she’s amused by his annoyance.

He sits back, keeping both hands on his wineglass. “I wish I could have seen his face.”

Mirka sips her wine. “You could see it in person if you just go down the street,” she says.

Roger looks down at his wineglass and runs a finger over the rim. His lips and fingerprints have smudged the pristine shine. “Don’t,” he says.

She sighs. She sounds exasperated. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she says.

“What?” Roger takes a mouthful of wine, rather more than might be expected with such a vintage.

“Act like you have to keep it all a secret from me. I’ve told you often, Roger. We don’t have to pretend.”

“That was a long time ago,” he said. “It was over when the girls were born, you know that.”

“I don’t know that, because it’s not true.”

He hates her sometimes. He can feel her beside him, and he wants to move away, but he doesn’t. “It is true,” is all he says.

“Just because you don’t have sex with him doesn’t mean it’s over, Roger,” she says.

“Jesus, Mirka,” he says. He stands up and walks towards the window, looking out into the last light of the evening.

“What, you don’t want me to say it?” He can hear frustration in her voice. “You know it’s true. You always loved him, and I always accepted that. More than that, I was really fine with it. I told you that.”

Outside, the trees are black against the darkening grey of the sky. “That was a long time ago,” he says quietly. “Years ago. Then you got pregnant. I knew it had to change. It was okay with me, you know? I wanted that. I wanted us to be normal.”

“Our lives are not normal,” she says. “And not just because we bring the girls on the tour. But you try to make us normal, you know, two parents, two children, all of that. Did you think I wanted that? I never asked you for that.”

He turns and looks at her, incredulously. “You agreed to marry me,” he says. “I asked you and you said yes, and we have a family now. This is a family, this is what a family does. I couldn’t keep—” He falters. “I couldn’t keep doing that and leaving you and the girls at home. It’s not right.”

“What’s not right is that I see the two of you after the Roland Garros final standing so close after the match, and I know you’re taking what little time you have to just touch him, to be close to him. And he is the same, touching you because, for once, he can.” She shakes her head, as if she’s disappointed with him. “God, you know, that broke my heart. It really did.”

He turns back to the window. “You’re fucking crazy,” he mutters.

“What?” she asks him. She’s standing now, too.

“I said you’re fucking crazy,” he says, looking at her again. On the TV screen, someone is wittering on about some British junior that Roger can already see will never even break the top twenty.

“I’m not the one who’s fucking crazy,” she says, her voice tight and angry. “I can’t figure out why, but you used me as an excuse to stop seeing him. You told yourself this story, that we have to be this perfect, normal family, and you never asked me, Roger. You never asked me what I thought.” She is standing by the coffee table, glass in one hand, her hair a little dishevelled and her shirt hugging the shape of her breasts. She comes towards him and looks into his eyes. “You don’t have to use me as an excuse. I love you, and I’ve always loved all of you. Including the part of you that wants him.”

His head is swimming a little; he’s tired and he hasn’t eaten in a while, and the wine is good. “You’re right,” he says. “You never asked me for any of that.”

“No,” she says.

“I wanted you to, though,” he says quietly. He’s never said it before.

She looks at him. “Roger,” she says, and she sounds half moved, half exasperated.

“It’s the way it should be, isn’t it?” he says. “We always say that away from all the media and the courts and everything, we’re just normal. Like my parents. Like anyone’s parents. We should want that for Myla and Charlene.”

She shakes her head. “No,” she says to him. “No. What Myla and Charlene need is the same as what any kids need. Parents who are happy. We’ve have always been happy together, you and me. The only difference Rafa makes is that he makes you happy, too.”

“You make me happy,” says Roger, taking a step towards her.

“You know what I mean,” she replies.

“Are you listening to me?” he asks her. “You make me happy.” He takes the glass from her hand and puts it down beside his own on the coffee table. He slides his hands around her hips, bringing her against him. He can feel her breasts against his chest. He kisses her lightly. “You make me happy,” he says again.

She smiles a little, almost reluctantly, but puts her arms around his neck, melting against him. “Do I?” she asks. She’s playful now, and Roger is relieved. He kisses her again, more deeply this time. He can feel the desire for her pool in his groin. He runs one hand over the curve of her ass.

“Yes,” he whispers against her lips. He walks her backwards towards the couch and they fall together, her legs wrapping around him. “I love you,” he tells her, and he’s not just saying the words.

“I know,” she says, as he slips open the fly of her jeans and slides his hand between her legs.

Afterwards, when she lies on top of him on the couch, her hair a mess and her cheeks red and her eyes bright in the flickering glow from the television, she kisses him again.

 

He wakes late the next day. The other side of the bed is empty and distantly he can hear the voices of Mirka, the girls and the nanny in the kitchen. The curtains are drawn back wide and there are finches chattering in the chestnut tree outside the window. Every morning here is marked with the smell of fresh cotton sheets and the scent of coffee wafting up from the kitchen. He feels aches throughout his body from playing five sets yesterday, and yet he feels languid and lazy from having sex with Mirka for what felt like hours last night. They fucked quick and dirty on the couch, and then she led him up to the bedroom, where they took their time—the girls well and truly asleep now—but he still covered her mouth with his hand by the time he had her on the brink of orgasm, just in case.

He picks up his phone. A text has arrived sometime while he slept. _Sorry that you lose, Roger,_ it says. Roger closes the message and puts his phone down. Then he picks it up and reads it again.

 

Mirka calls Anna later and they book a table at Nobu for eight o’clock. The place is full, but there’s always a table for Roger Federer and Anna Wintour. Roger is not a man prone to philosophical introspection, but there is something about this night that unsettles him. It seems as if words ring hollow, as if conversation skates on sheets of crystal, shining and fragile. The clamour of the busy restaurant seems to echo in his ears.

“I was speaking to Annie last week,” says Anna. “She asked me to say hi.”

“Annie?” asks Roger, distracted.

Mirka leans over. “Liebowitz,” she says. “The photographer?”

Roger nods. “Oh yes,” he says. “Of course. Tell her hi.”

Anna takes a last bite of her scallops and looks at him appraisingly. “Is everything alright?” she asks.

“Oh, you know,” says Roger, dismissively. “I hate to lose in the quarters.”

Anna nods. “I understand,” she says. She has a very direct manner which Roger, in this strange mood, finds that he appreciates. Anna allows for simple answers, even when she knows they are not true.

The car that takes them home is sleek and silent, and he lapses into a kind of reverie, streetlights flickering by as they drive back out towards the suburbs, until they are once more under the green of spreading trees. There are still tennis fans around Southfields and straggling up towards the camping ground near the club. It seems wrong that these fans are not waiting to see him. He passes a group of three girls flying the Spanish flag behind them as they walk.

He looks over at Mirka. She is drowsy, her chin resting on her hand against the door. She too seems lost in thought.

“Mirka,” he says. She looks over at him. “I think I’ll get out at Rafa’s.”

Mirka just nods. “Okay,” she says, looking away again.

Roger leans forward and tells the driver where to stop.

 

The car pulls away from the kerb and Roger watches it go, giving Mirka a wave when she looks back. It feels ridiculous. And yet he waves her goodbye and stands outside Rafa’s house. There are still a few lights on inside, though there is no indication of anyone’s presence or absence. Roger thinks better of ringing the doorbell and takes out his phone instead, finding Rafa’s number and pressing call.

It rings to voicemail the first time, and Roger doesn’t leave a message. But the second time he calls, Rafa picks up after a single ring.

“Roger?” he says.

“Hi, Raf,” says Roger. “I’m outside.”

There is silence at the end of the line, but then as Roger keeps looking he sees the blinds on an upstairs window open. “I see you,” says Rafa.

“Can I come in?” asks Roger. He feels nervous, just for a second, asking the question.

“Sure,” says Rafa, and Roger can see he is gone from the window. He walks to the door and hangs up just before it opens.

Rafa stands in the dim light of the entrance hall wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. His hair looks rumpled. Roger is taken aback, for a moment, at how good he looks, though it’s not something he’s ever forgotten.

“Did I wake you?” he asks.

Rafa shakes his head. “No,” he says. “But it’s late.”

Roger steps up to the threshold. “You’re Spanish,” he says. “Aren’t you always up late?”

Rafa half smiles, one eyebrow rising. He gestures Roger inside and shuts the door. “Not tonight,” he says, “so be quiet.” He tiptoes through to the kitchen at the back of the house, motioning for Roger to follow.

The house is different from the one he is renting, but it has the same sense of affluence. The kitchen is spacious and, once Rafa has turned on the lights, brightly lit. Rafa squints a little against the light.

“I did wake you,” said Roger. “I’m sorry, I thought you’d still be awake.”

“It’s after midnight, Rogi,” says Rafa, leaning against the island in the middle of the room. Roger can’t help but drink in the sight: Rafa, sleepy and relaxed, leaning against the countertop with unaffected nonchalance, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts to sleep in. Roger’s throat feels tight, all of a sudden.

“Why are you here?” asks Rafa.

Roger shakes himself. “Sorry,” he says. He feels suddenly embarrassed and at a loss. “Rafa,” he begins, but he does not how to continue. He takes a step towards Rafa, but he pulls away ever so slightly, so Roger stops and stands in the middle of the kitchen. “Raf,” he tries again. “Look, I’m here to tell you…”

Rafa just leans there, watching him.

“I guess, you know, what I’m trying to say is that…” Another pause. Another attempt to gather the threads of his fraying intentions. “I shouldn’t have done it,” he says.

Rafa lifts an eyebrow. “What?” he says, flatly.

“Stopped seeing you,” says Roger.

This seems to have got Rafa’s attention. He straightens up, something wary in his stance and expression. “Oh yes?” is all he says.

“Yes,” says Roger. “I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry.” He doesn’t know what he expected, but Rafa remains expressionless.

“It’s done,” he says. He shrugs a little, and there’s a certain set to his mouth that reminds Roger of the court, a certain determination to show nothing.

Roger shakes his head and sighs. “I know, okay? I know it’s stupid to turn up here like this.” He spreads his hands, as if it is the kitchen that is ridiculous, as if he isn’t the absurdity in the room.

Rafa looks like he doesn’t know what to say, as if he finds the conversation incomprehensible, though Roger is being as clear as he knows how to be.

“I wanted to tell you,” says Roger, helplessly.

“Tell me what, Rogi?”

“Tell you this. Tell you. You know.” He stops, takes a breath. “Tell you that I’m sorry.”

Rafa’s arms are crossed across his chest and his face remains unreadable, dark, impenetrable. “This was a long time ago,” he says.

Roger nods. “I know,” he says. “You know, I know that. But I wanted to come here and tell you.”

Rafa stands still, and Roger suddenly knows how it is to feel out of place, disjointed and improbable. This is not his Rafa standing before him. This is a man he knows so profoundly, so completely that it is as if he is his other self; and yet here he stands, implacable and calm as the eye of a storm, unreachable. “I shouldn’t have come,” says Roger.

“Maybe not,” says Rafa. He laughs a little, and Roger feels it like mockery. “I play the semi-final tomorrow. Time to sleep, I think.”

“I’ll go. Forget I came, okay,” he says. “Sorry. Good luck tomorrow.” He turns and fumbles with the latch to the kitchen door. Rafa comes to help him, and all Roger can feel is his body within inches of his own.

Rafa leads him to the front door. “See you, Roger,” he says.

Roger steps out onto the doorstep. “Goodbye, Raf,” he says, and as Rafa closes the door it feels like the bookend to something that had never, until now, been quite over.

 

He slips into bed beside Mirka and takes her in his arms. He sleeps with his head pressed between her shoulderblades. When they awake, they make love, and she doesn’t once ask.

 

They give the nanny the day off and spend the day with the girls, who seem to be in a better mood now that their back teeth have finally begun to break through. Roger resolutely does not turn on the television, but late in the afternoon he carries Myla into the living room, searching for her favourite stuffed cat, and Mirka is checking the scores. “Djokovic beat Tsonga,” she says. “And Rafa is a set down to Murray.”

“What?” says Roger, before he can help himself. Scenes flash through his mind: Rafa unable to get back to sleep last night and now stuck in this fatigued slog out on Centre Court, all because of him. He finds Myla’s cat and sits with her on the couch, where she climbs out of his lap and goes to find Charlene. Mirka follows her into the kitchen.

Roger stays on the couch until the final point is played. Despite everything, he still finds it exhilarating to watch Rafa hit his best form. Once the second set turns his way, Rafa is ruling the court, finding a form that Andy can’t match. There are still some shots that take Roger’s breath away, and it strikes him that he isn’t sure, at all, that Rafa knows how much he loves to watch him play. He feels like an idiot, all of a sudden. It seems too awful to contemplate the possibility that Rafa doesn’t know. So he picks up his phone, when the match is done, and sends him a text: _You were amazing today, Rafa. You deserve to win the final._ And then, suddenly fearing that after his foolish midnight visit Rafa might have deleted his number, he adds his name: _Roger._

He puts his phone down and tells himself that Rafa definitely won’t respond. That doesn’t stop him checking it repeatedly for hours, though.

 

They intend to leave on Saturday but there’s some problem at the airport that means they can’t leave until late; they figure they may as well stay one more day. Then, on Sunday morning, Mirka has some panic over some misplaced jewellery and next thing he knows it’s nearly two o’clock. His suitcases are ready in the hallway but he can still hear Mirka search and shuffle upstairs, so he flicks on the TV. Boris Becker is naming Djokovic the favourite for the match, and Roger snorts. Boris knows how to work the BBC, he thinks.

Then the match begins, and it seems like no time before Rafa is down by two sets. Roger gesticulates at the screen, turning to Mirka, who is by now sitting the other end of the sofa. “He’s injured,” says Roger. “It’s the only explanation. He’s making too many errors on his forehand. It must be his foot.”

Mirka nods. “It looks like it,” she says.

Then in the third, things change. Roger begins to sense that delicate balance that can tip a match. Rafa starts hitting the lines and Novak seems to droop a little, his shoulders slumping as he hits his forehands long and his backhands wide. He sits forward, his elbows on his knees. Somewhere he can hear the nanny take Myla and Charlene out in their twin pushchairs. Roger frowns and looks at Mirka, a suspicion forming in his mind.

“Did you find your necklace?” he asks.

Mirka looks back at him, her arms crossed and a look of practiced innocence on her face. “Oh, no,” she says. “Not yet.”

“Huh,” he says. “Strange. You always put your jewellery away so carefully.”

“I know, right?” she says to him.

Roger watches Novak sitting down during the changeover for a moment. “It’s probably a bit late to fly out now,” he says. “I mean, for the girls.”

“Right, good point,” says Mirka. “I should probably call the airstrip. We can leave tomorrow. It will be fine.”

“Right,” says Roger. “Seems like a good idea.”

Mirka makes the call, and that’s all they say until Rafa has lost.

 

Roger watches Rafa after the final point. He barely hugs Novak at the net and he looks pissed off, almost sulky. He is, of course, as gracious and lovely as ever during the interview with Sue Barker, even dealing with the microphone gaffe in his own easy way, but when Novak is giving his speech and throughout the rest of the ceremony, Roger can see Rafa’s anger. He looks furious, and Roger knows his fury is directed at himself. Roger knows that feeling all too well; Rafa has made him feel it. But Roger has never seen it like this in Rafa before.

It was always different with Roger. And for Roger, it is always different with Rafa. He would have liked to beat him at Roland Garros, but he didn’t, and that loss did not stop him pressing his forehead to Rafa’s at the net, or holding him close while they were being photographed with their trophies.

Roger closes his eyes for a moment at the thought of Rafa’s touch. His breath catches in his throat. Rafa’s hands, his skin, his touch were once so familiar. At first it was just stolen moments in the locker room. Then a few hours here and there in their hotel rooms. Roger remembers the first time they had sex in a bed; it was glorious and free in comparison to shower stalls and uncomfortable benches. He can’t remember when exactly he realised that Mirka knew, but somehow without directly talking about it, she told him it was okay. So he began to stay nights, now and then, in Rafa’s bed, waking up next to him warm and sleepy and amazing.

When it finally strikes Roger what he has lost in giving up Rafa, he has to hold himself still until he no longer feels he will throw up.

~8~

Later, he helps Mirka feed the girls and give them their baths and put them to bed. The nanny retires to her room and Mirka yawns and says she’ll go to bed early. Roger says that he’s not tired and he feels like he has energy to burn after a day spent on the couch; maybe he’ll go for a walk. Mirka kisses him goodnight. “Okay,” she says, and she pats him on the cheek before turning away.

Roger is under no illusions as to his destination. Rafa’s house is not far. After Thursday night’s disastrous visit, he does not know what to expect, but something in Rafa’s demeanour after the match has given him strange hope. Perhaps, he thinks quietly, perhaps Rafa will listen this time.

He tries Rafa’s phone, but it goes straight to voicemail. Roger has turned off his phone after bad losses, too. He tries the doorbell.

It’s Toni who answers. “Roger,” he says in German, holding out a hand. Roger shakes it.

“Hi, Toni,” replies Roger. He hesitates a little and then asks, “Is Rafa here?”

Toni nods and steps inside, gesturing to Roger to follow him. “Yes,” he says. “He is here. Come on.”

Roger follows Toni inside.

Rafa is in the kitchen. “Roger,” he says, when Toni leads Roger in. He shares a look with his uncle, though Roger cannot interpret it. Rafa’s team is all there. Benito is flicking through something on his phone and Rafa Maymo is packing his things away over on the physio table. Carlos Costa is uncapping a few bottles of beer and placing them on the kitchen island.

“We were just going through the match,” says Toni. On the countertop, there’s a computer with a still frame of the match, from the third set.

Roger looks at Rafa. “This is the set you won,” he says.

“Yeah,” Rafa says.

“You want a beer, Roger?” asks Toni. He passes a bottle from Carlos and Roger takes it.

“Danke,” he says.

“We’re just going over what Rafa did right in the third,” says Toni.

“He did a lot right in the third,” says Roger.

“Exactly.” Toni smiles at him. “Even with a fracture in his foot.” He explains what he said to Rafa in Mallorquín.

Rafa leans against the island and takes his beer. “It’s just a hairline fracture,” he says. “Just very small.” He holds his finger and his thumb about a centimetre apart, as if that reassures Roger at all.

“You were playing with a fracture,” he says. “Why would you do that? That’s insane.”

Rafa shrugs. “I want to win,” he says, taking a mouthful of beer.

Roger exhales an astonished breath. “Seriously,” he says, with feeling. “You’re fucking crazy.”

For the first time in a long time, Rafa looks up at him and smiles.

After that, things seem to relax. Toni closes over the laptop and makes everyone follow him to the living room. Rafa and Roger speak in English, with Carlos Costa joining in now and then. Roger speaks German to Toni and Rafa speaks Mallorquín and Spanish with everyone but Roger. And yet, they seem to be able to maintain a fairly functional conversation and get each other’s jokes.

One by one, the others head to bed. Toni claps Roger on the shoulder as he leaves and as soon as he’s gone, Roger looks over at Rafa, totally confused. Rafa just laughs at him. He is sprawled out in an armchair, finally relaxed, all sense of the awkwardness and tension of their last conversation diffused.

“Where are your parents and Maribel?” asks Roger.

“They stay in a hotel,” says Rafa. “Too many people here if they stay, no?”

“I guess it would be crowded.” He’s itching to ask about Xisca. He has always wondered what might have happened with her after he was out of the picture. It wasn’t as if they didn’t get along.

“Xisca is staying there, too,” says Rafa.

Roger suppresses a smile and is suddenly engaged in staring intently at the label on his beer bottle. “You can read my mind,” he said.

“Not good, Rogi,” says Rafa. “Never let the opponent see what you think.”

Roger looks up at him again. “Are you my opponent, Rafa?” he asks.

Rafa watches him for a moment. There is something calculating in his eyes, something dark and thoughtful. “Only on the court,” he says, finally.

Roger exhales in relief. “Good,” he says, and drinks the last mouthful of his beer.

“You mean what you say to me last Thursday, Roger?” asks Rafa, suddenly.

Roger places his beer bottle on the table. Rafa still has his in his hand, held casually against his thigh, condensation soaking slightly into his shorts. “Yes,” says Roger. “I meant it.”

“Why?” asks Rafa. “Why do you change your mind now?”

Roger leans forward, his elbows on his knees. He rubs his face in his hands and then looks back at Rafa. “Mirka,” he says, smiling a little and shrugging.

Rafa frowns, confused.

“She said to me I was not really happy without you,” continues Roger. “I realised she was right. Of course she was right, she’s always right.” He sighs, and he knows that now is the moment, the moment when he has to lay it all on the table. “I’m not the same without you, Rafa,” he says earnestly. “I’m not, I don’t know. Complete.” He feels ridiculous saying it and he ducks his head to hide his embarrassment, but he means it all the same.

Rafa has a soft look about him, an expression on his face that is at once serene and full of feeling. “You finally realise?” he says.

Roger laughs a little. “This is not news to you?”

Rafa presses his lips together and shakes his head. “I always know we are better together,” he says, and the simplicity of it, the way he can just say these things so easily and so honestly, makes Roger’s heart swell.

“Oh, Rafa,” he sighs. “I don’t know how I ever left you in the first place.”

Rafa sits forward. “I know you need time, Rogi, when you have the babies,” he says. Then he smiles, a little tired and broken. “I didn’t know you need so much.”

“I’m sorry,” says Roger, desperately. “I really am, Raf.”

“I know,” says Rafa.

“Do you think…” begins Roger, but his throat is suddenly tight and he finds it difficult to continue. “Do you think we can ever, you know. Ever find our way back?”

Rafa seems to consider this for a moment. Then he shakes his head. “No,” he says. It hits Roger like a fist to the stomach.

“Okay,” he says, looking away from Rafa, looking at his fingernails, the windows, anything but Rafa’s face after saying that word. “I understand. I get it, you know? It’s fine.”

Rafa laughs a little, and Roger looks up sharply. “I don’t mean this, Roger,” says Rafa, his smile wide and relaxed. Roger feels a little irritated at this casual way in which he is breaking Roger’s heart. Rafa continues. “I mean, we can’t go back. Only forward. This is what Toni tells me about tennis. I think it’s the same for you and me, no?”

Roger puts his head in his hands. “Oh my god, Rafa,” he says. “Don’t do that to me.”

Rafa reaches out with a hand, placing it on Roger’s arm. “Sorry,” he says.

“You’re not really sorry,” says Roger, taking Rafa’s hand in his own.

“Nope,” says Rafa. He’s grinning now, his face creased into the smile lines that Roger could spend hours tracing. But he has other things on his mind. He shifts over closer to Rafa, and Rafa’s smile softens, becomes something more intimate and lovely. Roger runs his fingertips over Rafa’s cheeks, across his mouth.

“I missed you so much,” he says.

Rafa kisses him, and Roger loses himself, for a moment, in the press of Rafa’s lips, the gentle pressure of his tongue. Rafa’s fingers are buried in his hair and Roger’s hand is high on Rafa’s thigh. Rafa is hot and tense against him. Quickly, they become hungrier, and Rafa stands, pulling Roger up with him. “Bedroom,” he says. Roger follows him upstairs.

Once the door is closed, they fall together. At first, Roger just wants to feel Rafa’s body against his own, here in the darkness where there is no one to see. They scrabble and tear at clothes and kick off their shoes until they’re skin to skin. Roger gently pushes Rafa back against the bed. “Lie down,” he whispers, and Rafa acquiesces. He looks glorious, even in the dim light filtering in to the bedroom. Roger kneels over him, on all fours, drinking him in. “Oh god, Rafa,” he breathes. He bends down for another kiss, and then, as Rafa stretches languorously beneath him, he mouths and licks his way down Rafa’s body, imprinting himself once more on his hot skin. Rafa has one hand buried in his hair, and when Roger reaches Rafa’s cock his hand curls into a fist. Roger licks the length of him, taking his time, savouring every moment.

“God, Roger,” says Rafa, in a kind of half choked gasp.

He is trying to touch Rafa everywhere, but his hands finally settle on Rafa’s hips, holding him still as he takes Rafa in as far as he can. Rafa is already making small, drawn-out whimpering noises deep in his throat. He is glorious spread out like this, thinks Roger. He feels a kind of euphoria from being with Rafa again, as if he’d been craving this without even knowing it. He kisses his way back up Rafa’s body, lingering here and there as if recovering old memories, mapping known territory, and marking it as his own. He brings their cocks together and Rafa gasps when he takes them both in his hand.

He buries his face in the curve of Rafa’s neck. “I was such an idiot, Rafa,” he whispers directly into Rafa’s skin. Rafa envelops him in his arms, kissing him and running his fingers over Roger’s flexing muscles. He rolls them over, till he’s the one on top, staring down at Roger with dark, desperate eyes.

“Yes,” he says. “An idiot.” Then he kisses Roger deeply, wildly, and Roger feels abandoned and reckless. “I’m going to fuck you,” says Rafa, and he makes it sound like a promise. He leans back for a moment, scrabbling in the bedside drawer for lube and a condom. He kisses his way down the inside of Roger’s thigh, his fingers already working to get him ready. He takes his time, and Roger is panting for it by the time Rafa enters him. They both groan in unison, a guttural, strung out kind of sound.

“Oh god, Rafa,” says Roger, and his voice is fractured and unsteady. Rafa’s eyes are dark and focused, looking straight at Roger. Roger feels completely exposed to him, body and soul. Rafa eases his way in, slowly, with care, one hand curled in Roger’s hair and the other holding his thigh. Roger can feel Rafa inside him, like a part of himself that was missing but is once more found. He is impatient to push, to move together, but he lets Rafa take his time. Rafa looks at him desperately, making tiny, broken noises as he slides in, balls-deep. Roger can’t wait. “Rafa,” he says, his voice little more than a ragged whisper. “Please.”

Rafa complies. He pulls out and then pushes back in again, not too hard, but enough to make Roger feel it. Roger feels bizarrely grateful, all of a sudden, and he wants to convey this to Rafa, so he draws him down and kisses him over and over again, until all he can feel, all he can think about, all he wants is Rafa.

Rafa is groaning, and somewhere at the edge of his mind, Roger can’t help but think about everyone in the rooms around them, but Rafa doesn’t seem to care. Roger is going crazy, his hand wrapped around his own cock as Rafa fucks him harder and harder, a relentless rhythm, until Roger can’t bear it anymore. He gives his cock a few hard jerks and he feels himself tip over the edge of orgasm, suspended, for a moment, just on the brink, and then he climaxes so hard he’s striping his own chest with come. Rafa watches him, watches his cock as he comes, and then he lets out a deep, obscene groan and Roger can feel his whole body tense, can feel his cock pulsing inside him, till Rafa collapses, exhaling loudly, on top of him.

Roger cradles him, vaguely patting his head and murmuring soft words into his hair. Rafa twitches and withdraws, turning his head and nuzzling into Roger’s neck. Roger is content to lie there with him forever, just the two of them, like this. Complete.

But eventually Rafa raises himself on one elbow, looking down at Roger now with eyes so soft and suffused with affection that Roger feels himself lose his breath, just for a moment. “Roger,” says Rafa, his voice a sleepy murmur.

“Mmm?” is all Roger can manage in return.

“Stay tonight?”

Roger sighs and smiles, drawing Rafa down against him. “Yes,” he says. “I’ll stay.”

They clean up and climb under the sheets. Rafa wraps his arms around Roger, biceps flexing against him.

“I said I’ll stay, Rafa,” says Roger, laughing a little.

“Just making sure,” says Rafa, pulling Roger even closer and running his hands over his chest, trailing his fingertips through the hair down to his belly. He falls asleep against Roger’s shoulder.

 

Roger wakes now and then during the night when Rafa moves against him. Though he is used to waking up disorientated, in a different bed with Mirka every few weeks, tonight is different. Having found Rafa again, he doesn’t care where he is, as long as Rafa is there.

 

They both have to leave early in the morning, and perhaps the strangest thing is how easy it is to kiss Rafa goodbye and walk just a couple of minutes back to his own house, where he picks up his girls in the kitchen and packs away the last of their things with Mirka. Rafa texts him from Heathrow just as they’re boarding the jet at the airstrip. Mirka sees him smile and text back and he doesn’t know where to look, for a second, till she brushes her hand against his forearm. After that, things seem to slot into place. They spend nights together in Montreal and Cincinnati, and by the time they’ve reached New York, it no longer feels unusual for Roger to spend one night with Rafa and the next with Mirka. He arrives back to the hotel room in Manhattan one morning to find her explaining to the girls that Daddy has spent the night with his friend, Rafa. The strangest thing about the scene is how blithely the girls take it. Thirty seconds later, they’re sharing a banana. Mirka gives him a bemused look.

“Is this too weird?” he asks her.

She holds him and pats his chest. “They’re two years old,” she says. “We always wanted to raise them open-minded and strong. That’s what we’ll do.”

He takes her hand, smiling. “You’re too good for me, you know that?”

“I know.” She kisses him. “Come on,” she says. “You’ve got a hit scheduled at noon.”

When he sees Rafa at the practice courts, they say hi and chat for a few minutes, just as usual. Toni touches his hat in a friendly salute. Later, as he practices, it occurs to Roger that he has found nothing like normality, but it turned out to be exactly what he was looking for.

**Author's Note:**

> In this story, I have gone with the rumour that circulated after the 2011 Wimbledon final that Rafa had a fracture in his foot.
> 
> Thanks so much to louiselux for her excellent and lovely beta, and her encouragement with this story. Any mistakes are my fault for tinkering with it after Lou betaed it.


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